Birthday and Sympathy cards

Two men in the family needed cards this week and I finally, today, had time to sit down and put cards together for them.  A birthday card for Jeff, featuring his trusty truck filled with stars and hearts, complete with a nice acetate window ...

And a far less happy occasion card for Tim at the death of his mother on the 4th anniversary of my own mother's death.  However, I was equally pleased with the results of what I think is a good masculine-looking sympathy card.

Lots of Love

Same new embossing folder but this time I also embossed the flower end of the folder on silver foil paper then cut out one of the stems of leaves and flowers and I think it looks really pretty.  Brushed the embossing with purple ink and added some Jewel Dazzles from Paper Wishes and the end result is very nice, I think.

Using my new embossing folder

When I received my new issue of Papercraft magazine yesterday, it contained a neat embossing folder that includes a grid of bows and a field of flowers all in one along with some neat ideas of using it, so I tried it out on a card for sil Lois who has been sick with the flu.  I embossed a piece of pink paper then rubbed white ink over it and it was really pretty when it was done. Backed it with a piece of silver foiled paper so set off the pink and white.  I have put it into the mail ... hope she likes it.

What if ...

Exodus 3:4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush.

One has to wonder what would have happened if Moses had not turned aside to see that burning bush.  Perhaps he would have spent the rest of his life being a shepherd, never having any more ambition that guiding and protecting the sheep.  Never being independent from his father-in-law/s wishes, never seeing more of the world than the deserts of Midian.  He would probably have never seen his family again, never done anything significant.  But Moses did turn aside to see the bush.  God did use that act to call Moses away from the behind-the-scenes lifestyle.  God was able to use Moses for a great purpose that might never have happened if Moses had not turned aside from his usual routine and heard a special message from God.

Roses

Another birthday card... still using the same set of papers and die cuts from Paper Wishes  and with a slightly different look because of combining brown and red, which I don't usually do, but this didn't turn out too badly, if I may say so myself.

Although I seem to be notoriously bad at photographing the insides of my cards, so this one is a little blurry, you can still get the idea of it!

Belated birthday

I have had a pad of 8 x 8 Graphic 45 paper for quite some time and because I really liked the colors and designs on the paper I have never figured out what exactly I wanted to do with it, but when I needed to make a kind-of fancy birthday card this week, I finally made myself pull it out and I am so glad I did.  I love the result!  May have to make a couple more cards from this pad like this one.

This is a 6 x 6 fancy gate fold card (when it is closed) and it doesn't want to stay closed on its own so it has a belly band to hold it closed, and I think the belly band gives it an extra measure of "fanciness."  Not to speak of the extra burst of color it added to the card.

When you slip the band off ...

And the inside...

Can you see the pocket in the middle section?  It has two tags with short messages on them and a surprise message behind them ...

One tag says "God bless you" and the other is a Bible verse, "His mercy is new every morning." 

I hope the fun of this card and its bright colors will ease the pain of receiving a belated birthday greeting!!

Catching up on cards

I keep forgetting to document my cards and other paper craft efforts for some reason.  Maybe it's because I have never developed the habit of photographing anything.  But for whatever reason, I finally remembered this morning as I was preparing to address some envelopes that I had not taken any pictures of my work.  One envelope is already sealed, but I remembered before doing that with these two cards.

The first one is a sympathy card.  The front is cut off on the right side so the red paper on the right side of the inside of the card shows.  The paper is printed with the "crooked" design which threw me off at first.  It takes a little getting used to, but it has grown on me.

This is the second card... a birthday card, the first of several I need to make for more January birthdays coming in the next week or so.  I'd better get busy making them (and hopefully remembering to photograph them) before I run out of time...